


Forget Me Not

by ufopossumfic (ufopossum)



Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: Getting Together, Happy Ending, Language of Flowers, M/M, Megavolt is just sort of there, more observant than he gets credit for Quackerjack, oblivious Bushroot, pining Liquidator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 20:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21062750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ufopossum/pseuds/ufopossumfic
Summary: Liquidator learns the language of flowers. Bushroot jumps to the wrong conclusion. Quackerjack gives a nudge.





	Forget Me Not

It was a silly idea. That's what the Liquidator told himself again and again as he approached his friend's greenhouse. It was a silly, self-indulgent idea that would never work. Still, he couldn't bring himself to stop and turn around. He knocked on the door in a particular rhythm that indicated he wasn't a snooping do-gooder.

Bushroot answered the door after a moment of fumbling with his trowels and potting soil. Bushroot smiled at seeing who had knocked, and to Liquidator, he seemed brighter than the sun. "Fancy seeing you here! Need something?"

Liquidator hesitated for a moment before replying with his usual winning grin. "Word on the street is you're the man to see about flowers!"

"Well, yeah, who else?" Bushroot looked incredulous, but his smile never wavered. "C'mon in, I'm sure I've got whatever you're looking for, and if I don't, I can grow it!"

Immediately on stepping inside, Liquidator was struck with a wall of cloyingly sweet scents. Every variety of flower he could imagine, and a few he had never seen before, grew alongside mutant venus flytraps and pitcher plants. Combined with the humid heat of the greenhouse, it was a bit overwhelming, but Liquidator pressed on.

"So, what is it you're looking for? Dog Roses? Dogwood?" Bushroot giggled at his own joke, and Liquidator huffed, though he had to admit it was a _ little _funny.

"No, actually, I need a bouquet. I wrote down what I need in it--" He pulled a scrap of paper from his form (and Bushroot wondered not for the first time how he managed to handle paper without disintegrating it) and handed it to his coworker.

Scanning over the list, Bushroot tried not to let his disappointment at the request show. "A bouquet, huh? Got a date?"

"Erm, yeah," Liquidator lied, rubbing the back of his neck.

With a thoughtful hum, Bushroot went about the greenhouse, gently plucking the needed flowers as he read from the list. "Red carnation, forsythia, gardenia, cedar sprigs, apricot blossoms... Are you sure these all go together?"

Liquidator nodded emphatically, and accepted the bouquet when it was presented to him. The liquid that made up his form bubbled with what Bushroot assumed was happiness. Liquidator thanked him, and with a lingering pause, left.

The next week, he came back.

"Another bouquet?" Bushroot gave his friend an unreadable look, to which Liquidator just shrugged and smiled. "You must be pretty serious about this person, huh?"

Liquidator nodded and replied, "Very." There wasn't much Bushroot could say to that. He gathered the flowers-- anemone, aster, daffodil, hawthorn-- and handed them over, then turned back to his work.

The week after that, Bushroot scarcely looked at his friend while gathering up his requested mallow, ipomoea, sweet william, and pink zinnias. Liquidator left with his tail between his legs.

A few more weeks passed, all of them solitary, as Liquidator seemed to sequester himself from the Fearsome Four. Quackerjack and Megavolt were getting worried, and so was Bushroot, though he wouldn't admit it out loud. When his friends pressed him to explain their last meeting, and Bushroot explained the bouquets, Quackerjack got a glint in his eye.

"He was pretty particular about the posies he picked, huh?" the jester asked.

Bushroot nodded. "Yeah. I don't know why. I guess whoever he was dating was picky. It must not have ended well." The plant mutant rested his chin on the table, despondent. "I should've talked to him about it. Oooh, what kind of friend am I?"

"Isn't there a whole secret code around flowers?" Quackerjack leaned over casually, though his eyes bored into Bushroot as he mentally begged him to take the hint.

After a moment more of sulking, Bushroot slowly sat up. Realization crossed his face. "OhmygodI'vegottagobye--" He rushed out of their meeting place and back to the greenhouse. There, under a table, he found a dusty old book titled 'The Language of Flowers'.

_ Red carnation, forsythia, gardenia, cedar sprigs, apricot blossoms...  
_Admiration, anticipation, secret love, "think of me", diffident love...

_ Anemone, aster, daffodil, hawthorn...  
_Fragile anticipation, patience, unrequited love, hope...

_ Mallow, ipomoea, sweet william, pink zinnias...  
_Deep love, "I belong to thee", "grant me one smile", lasting affection...

The book fell to the floor with a thud. Bushroot went to work.

That afternoon, a knock rang out from Liquidator's manor. The water dog trudged to the front door, too lethargic with sorrow to wonder who was there. He flung the door open--

\-- only to find Bushroot, standing there with an apologetic smile and a bouquet in his hands. A dozen red roses interspersed with chamomile an purple hyacinth.

The flowers fell to the ground as the pair became distracted in each others' arms.


End file.
